During my junior year of high school I was obsessed with this magnetic poetry set I got from Barnes and Noble. Many of my bad poems stem from those evenings alone in my bedroom waiting for a boy to call while moving around the words on a filing cabinet. There were also many nights spent singing in front of a mirror to Jewel and The Indigo Girls and Lisa Loeb and Sheryl Crow and pretending I was in a music video, but that’s a story for another day.

The following is a magnetic poetry poem from the spring of 1998. Judging from the tone I’d say it was probably early March. A tumultuous time that resulted in a lot of angsty poems. This is actually one of my favorites.

MAGAZINE (1998)

I no longer give a damn
the romance is over
He says to me
“You’re a contradiction
return to zero.”
Who knew love gives
red blood?
This is why we exist.